School is shit.

A thirteen-year stretch of emotional and physical violence interrupted by sad and stooping adult figures that shouted a lot and wore supermarket clothes.

Occasionally, there were bright moments, due to some prankster drawing a penis in a public place, smacking a teacher in the face with a chair or burning down one of the science blocks. But these tended to be acts by boys that suffered abusive parenting and went on to a career in petty theft or mental hospitalisation. Such consequences mean those jokes are not funny any more.

The people one went to school with were awful – a lottery in which you had no choice of companions. On the whole, the poor people were stupid, the rich people were nasty and the middle classes were boring.

To desire to return to such an institution is a mark of insanity. It reminds me of an ex-convict I used to know that kept, on the door of his bedroom in a halfway house, the number of his cell. After six months of liberty, he ran into a high street and started stabbing pedestrians, just so his probation officer could send him back.

At least the prison offered him security. No such solace for schoolchildren.

Although the Friends Reunited website is well organised, the brand is great, the business plan tight and it is easy to use, as well as hopelessly addictive, it is a retrospective indulgence, similar to going to a psychotherapist or spending a whole weekend indoors watching the entire fifteen series of Henry's Cat, while sugar-rushing on Tizer and shouting "My turn to operate!"

Yes, the fact that one reads Friends Reunited is an admission of failure. After scouring the three institutions I spent my formative years for news of my classmates, that makes me a failure. Do not become one too. Heed these warnings.

1. No point

Few visit Friends Reunited to reunite with friends, because most people have friends and do not want any more. If someone gets in contact with you from school through the site, it means they are looking for friends, which means they do not have any. If that does not scare you enough, when you reunite with a friend of whom you have lost contact, you will probably discover either a) you can no longer be friends because you have nothing in common, or b) the reasons why you stopped being friends in the first place.

Indeed the saddest thing to see on the information box is the line: "If anyone wants to get in touch, please email me at . . ." like some message in a bottle thrown to the waves. Can they really mean 'if anyone wants to get in touch'? Who could respond? The school bully? Some bored hacker pretending they attended the school? Klaus von Bulow? Rose West?

2. Stupid names

Browsing down the lists of ex-pupils, I was surprised to see that old school companions, who had never had a nickname, suddenly gave themselves one. For example, at my comprehensive school, one person has elected to call himself 'Hairy bum', another 'monkey tits'. These were never regular pseudonyms.

It is almost as though these people want to reinvent the past. To create a fantastical period of school life, in which they were popular and sociable, so much so, that they could confidently brandish self-effacing monikers.

These are the people that will caw on their information box: "We had such good times!" Even though the one lasting memory of this individual was the sight of him cowering naked inside a giant plastic bin as a line of boys took turns to ply the kid's face with his own skid-marked undies.

3. Tedious

People seem to write things that are of no interest, but phrase it as though readers have actively solicited for such information. Such as "Well, I managed to scrape a 2:2 in Engineering at the University of Middlesex." Just in case you were wondering . . . Or "I am working at Telford City Council – I'm assistant to the chief exec!" As if anyone cared about anyone that worked 1) as an assistant, 2) for a council, 3) in Telford.

All they seem to want to write about is university, marriage, kids and jobs, when all readers of the site want to know about their school chums are three questions: 1. Are you gay? 2. Can you lend me money? 3. Have you killed anyone?

4. Suburban

But those that have achieved the triumvirate of marriage, kids and a job, and see middle age encroaching on them like a rung of fat below a chin, feel they have to make some concession to a more rebellious lifestyle. Hence one writer to my site has written: "Getting married next year. I play a lot of golf. But I still like to rock out!" Grow up . . .

5. Weemees

If you put a weemee next to your name, you are scum.

6. Liars

People that lie in order to try to be funny, by saying they "Pimp out hoes for 50 Cent" or "am living with Osama Bin Laden" are bad enough, but the ones that genuinely think they are cool are worse. For this, read anyone who gives their DJ name, such as "You might know me . . . I am DJ Mudflaps". No, we do not know you. Go away and stop pretending to be an artist. Make some music instead of nicking everyone else's.

7. Exclamation marks!!!

Perhaps the most misused piece of punctuation, exclamation marks are often used in emails and regional advertising campaigns to over-emphasise a statement that is clearly, by its turn of phrase, designed to be read at volume.

The use of one mark in this respect is vulgar, the use of two is perverse and three pornographic. But, in the information supplied on Friends Reunited, every time an exclamation mark is used, it reads like a scream from the void, appealing to the past to confirm to this person that their life has not been wasted. It is like Edward Woodward at the end of The Wicker Man shouting to God to prove that his faith is true, before the flames lap up his virgin soul.

8. I AM HAPPY, REALLY, I AM HAPPY

Someone on our website wrote: I am VERY VERY VERY HAPPY. The school chum doth protest too much?

9. No sex

If you chose to reunite with your friends, it is usually because you think you may be able to sleep with someone that you used to stalk. But – and for argument's sake, let's say it is a woman – the girl you plied with love-letters, two hour long phone calls and whose house you used to walk past up to twenty times a day "just in case" you bumped into her, will have probably turned fat, mad or ugly.

Alternatively, there may be someone, whom you did not desire, that has turned from shocker to corker. However, a union with this individual will always prove unwise, as the memory of buckteeth, satellite ears or a bad perm proves indelible.

10. Hate

Ultimately, the only reason one ever visits Friends Reunited is to check that people have failed. It is to release a haughty cackle at the knowledge that those annoyingly beautiful talents with artistic, musical and dramatic potential have begun a sorry trek to anonymity. For this, you will rarely be disappointed.